#tma speculation

the figure isnt touching the ground. just like that mysterious floating figure that asked for cigarettes in ep1. weird. what is it doing here? what does it want?

Sarah Baldwin went missing in August 2006 and "was definitely a smoker", just like this one. And that case remains unsolved to this day, or so we were told.

the weird thing is... the events from this statement (recorded in April 17th, 2016) supposedly took place in January 2015. Not 2006. Is this really the same sarah baldwin that went missing? we know theres something extremely weird about our second sarah, for sure, if you count the "degloving your arm, stapling it back and then going on about your life" a little paranormal. So yeah, shes not doing good. But shes "alive", if you could call it that.

and obviously "went missing" couldve meant anything. dead, went to live in a cave for 9 years, or got recruited by whatever fucked up paranormal forces work in this world, etc. But we at least know that a known-person, Georgie Baker, knew her, 9 years after her alleged disappearance, and recommended her to the youtube channel-people. Or thats what our witness melanie tells us.

Was Georgie working with Them? how did she never note this was a missing person? is there public information Jon isnt aware of? that doesnt seem likely.

If this is the same sarah, shes obviously not... the same, and there has to have been some level of shady business for her to end up recommended by a public figure. unless the idea that she was recommended by georgie was manipulated and not real itfp. this is just weird.

because if you think about it, all the ambiguity is dependent upon that fact that we can't really see what's happening. did martin stab him fatally? was it just the eyes? did they get sucked into another dimension? or just straight up disappear?

and like, isn't it wonderfully ironic that this was what the web chose, the tapes? a medium that by its very nature allows for ambiguity, for different interpretations, for esoteric meanings assigned to small things (the voice distortion, the static, the ambient sound). isn't it great that what this entity used to manipulate the fear of being perceived is something that you can't physically see?

Evidence as follows:

-The tapes started popping up when Martin first arrived as well: Jon and him started at the same time give or take.

-The tapes are a good manifestation of the Lonely: what’s more Lonely than talking to yourself into a recording device.

-The tapes manifested in a place the Eye shouldn’t be able to reach, but the Lonely could (the manor).

-The tapes have recorded Martin alone as well as Jon. We assumed this was a manifestation of Jon worrying about Martin but what if it’s the other way around? What if it’s Martin worrying about Jon, which explains why they’ve been following him since the beginning because Martin has cared for Jon since then.

This leads to my endgame theory: for them to save the world, Jon is going to have to lose his memory of the entire events of the Podcast. It makes perfect sense in tragedy tradition: the man who’s flaw was wanting to know everything is kicked back to knowing nothing and the man who began so lonely is forced to do so again, but this time for the good of the world. There’s also a nice tragic lovers sense to it: Martin while sad knows Jon is happy and free, and has his own sense of purpose still there.

The tapes then serve as evidence everything really happened and potentially a ray of hope that even if Martin only remembers, the tapes prove it happened. There’s solace in that memory.